These Things About Us

by Laura Beege

  “If I did make those sounds, that’s still better than whatever your ladyfriend has in store for later. You should go back to her now. She probably misses you.”

  “Oh, you haven’t heard this one yet. You might actually like her, Kitty.” A small grin unfolded on his lips.

  “Stop calling me that. I’m not a drowning cat.”

  “No, but you flinch every time someone calls you by your name.”

  “I don’t.” Did I?

  “Good night, Kitty.”

  “Don’t come in here again!” I yelled at the closing door.

  With the camera moved to the nightstand – I couldn’t look at the memory cards without batteries or a laptop – I changed into my PJs and sat on the bed for another hour just looking at the small black machine that belonged to my mother. As much as I loved that it told me more about her, it didn’t tell me where to find her. It also didn’t tell me why she would leave it behind in the first place. I would never give up on such a beauty.

  I eventually climbed under the covers and hugged my pillow tight to my chest. Strangely enough, I did like this bedfriend of Trace’s. She was a quiet one. Not a single noise trickled through the wall that night.

  I had to get breakfast on my own the next day and didn’t cross paths with Wesley once during the following hours. I was growing impatient by the time I tied the apron around my waist. Not only because I kind of wanted to squeeze the details of his flirt out of him, but because I needed to use his computer. The camera had been waiting next to my bed for way too many hours. I had to get my hands on a laptop and check those memory cards. The pub was already opening up and he just seemed to have disappeared. I’d checked his room so often I’d lost count.

  My foot was jumping up and down as I stood by the CDs, choosing one for tonight to play. I was slowly getting a hang of who was who and picked a sampler with lots of steady, slow songs for the early evening crowd.

  “Marcus and I love this song for slow sex,” Sierra mused and took the case from me, nodding her head in tune with the music. “You hear those drums? Yeah, that rhythm’s great.”

  Unfortunately with every thump of the drums I now had the very vivid picture of Marcus and Sierra grinding their bodies against each other stuck in my head. “I didn’t want to know that.” I squeezed my eyes shut, but the song grew louder and the sex scene in my mind got more detailed. “Why did you say that?”

  “Darling, are you imagining our hot sex? You have one dirty mind.”

  “It’s not dirty. You made me think of that. God, just tell me something else, please.”

  “Wait,” Sierra held up a finger, “the rhythm picks up here.” She turned the volume up. The hits sped up and my ears stung from the decibels climbing. Worst of all: Imaginary Marcus was pounding away at imaginary Sierra.

  Trace frowned at the volume, too, and swiftly lowered it with a flick of his hand. “You can continue your headporn in your break, Kitty.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t like porn that makes me want to puke.” I stabbed the stereo with my index finger and the next song came on. Before Sierra could say a word, I held my hand up. “Don’t. Don’t tell me what you do during this song.”

  “Oh, please.” She swapped my hand away and pursed her lips. “I was about to ask you what kind of porn you like if you don’t like the hot-and-sweaty sort?”

  Someone had to rip my tongue out. It was betraying me. I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to look as indifferent as ever. Discussing porn with my co-worker while on duty? No problem at all. This was a totally normal conversation without any need to grow uncomfortable. “I don’t like porn period.”

  “No, no, you don’t get out of this. You said you don’t like porn that makes you throw up, so you have to spill the beans, Darling.”

  I was even stupid enough to look at Trace for help, but he leaned back against the counter and read the backside of a CD, not even sparing us one glance. Bastard. I swallowed and ran my tongue over my teeth to buy me one more moment to think of some innocent answer. “Kill me,” I mumbled and succumbed to the truth. “Alright, okay, I used to watch those intimate videos, okay? The soft ones where you think the couple is actually in love. I like imagining sex can be like that.”

  “Aw, you’re so sweet, Tony. You’re like the inexperienced baby sister I never had.” Sierra looped her arms around my waist. If only she knew.

  I’d meant to look for Trace’s reaction to my involuntary confession, but right behind him my favorite Baker brother strolled into the pub in yesterday’s clothes. Without hesitation, I pushed Sierra off with an apologetic smile and jogged around the bar. Wesley’s face lit up as he spotted me and he immediately scooped me up in a tight hug, burying his face in my neck.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, barely loud enough for me to hear.

  A small part of me felt bad for being so impatient, when Wes seemed to have had a really good time and he even was grateful. For what? That I hadn’t accepted his drink? “You’re welcome,” I sighed anyway and wrapped my arms around his shoulders shortly, before being set back down to the floor. “I need a favor, Wes.”

  Not even that request made his happiness waver, he just nodded.

  “Can I borrow your computer?”

  “Sure.”

  “Now.” The pub was mostly empty anyway, except for one lone guy slurping on his beer. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

  “Okay… It’s upstairs.”

  Grinning widely, I stepped around Wesley and waved at Sierra and Trace to catch their attention. “I’m taking my break now. I’ll be back down in a bit.” Or not. Maybe I was going to be running around London, finally finding my mother. “Come on.” I grabbed Wes’s sleeve and pulled him with me.

  “Do you need the CD?” Sierra called out. “It’s a great sex mix!”

  I flinched and hoped Alex hadn’t heard her. Granted, he could come upstairs and see us do absolutely nothing sexual, but I hated the risk her words posed. I had a very clear instruction that I wasn’t going to dismiss any more than I already had with the fake sex.

  Wes followed me up the stairs and kept poking his finger into the space between my shoulders, until I finally grabbed his hand and just held onto it until I had him on our floor.

  He fetched his laptop from his room without asking questions and lay down on my mattress with me, once I’d explained the situation. The memory card looked tiny in his long, lean fingers. “So you think she might have taken pictures of the new house and you’re going to figure out the address from that?”

  “That would be the best case, but seeing her face… I’d like that, too.”

  “Tony, what if these cards hold a complete life without you? A new family, new children and a labradoodle. She could have moved on, you know. Would you want to see that?”

  “I know she probably has moved on. I never thought she’d wait thirteen years.” I snatched the SD-card from him and pushed it into the slot. “It’s not like I’m going to butt into her life and make her take care of me.” I wanted to. It would have been nice to have a mother care for me, but I told myself that that’s not how real life worked. Now matter how hard a tiny piece of me clung onto the idea.

  An empty window popped up on the screen. No pictures, no files on this one. While I stared at just one more dead-end, Wesley pushed in the next card. A list of jpegs showed up and I clicked on the first one before I had the chance to run off and hide. Dear God, my legs were itching to jump into action.

  The picture showed the Notre Dame. I was no expert on sights, but between the Notre Dame, the Louvre, and dozens of old buildings with elegant windowsills and blue and green roofs, it wasn’t hard to guess where these pictures had been taken.

  “Maybe your mother moved to Paris,” Wes mused.

  I made some sound to let him know I heard him but didn’t bother with an answer. My attention was on the virtual sightseeing tour. It was all buildings and pictures of random people in the street. Not a single photograph
showed a tourist-y picture of people smiling at the camera and posing in front of some monument. Sighing heavily, I put the third and last card in.

  There were four pictures on it.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t,” I mumbled.

  “Come on, it can’t get worse.” Unfortunately he was right. I had nothing right now and it wouldn’t be going downhill from here.

  I clenched and unclenched my fists and clicked the first file. My lungs shriveled to raisins and my chest tightened.

  Mom was beautiful.

  Her hair, several shades lighter than mine, cascaded over her shoulders and her warm smile was directed at the person behind the camera, not the lens itself. Her lips were painted cherry red, her fingernails were soft pink. I could spot our birthmark. She looked so much like the young woman whose picture I carried with me, and yet, so much more peaceful, not caring that her eyes and lips were throwing wrinkles across her face when she laughed like that.

  “Is that her?”

  “Yeah,” I breathed.

  “She’s pretty.”

  “Mm-hmm.” We looked at the rest of the pictures, all similar to the first one but none as perfect as it. “Do you have a printer?”

  “There’s one in the office. Give me the card, I’ll print them for you.”

  “Thank you.” I handed him the card and dropped my head on his shoulder. He couldn’t know how grateful I was for this. For him. “Oh man, I totally forgot to ask about your… date.”

  “It was not a date and this seems a little more important than me losing my virginity.”

  I choked on my own breath. “You’re a virgin?”

  “Not anymore. That’s the point.”

  “That’s actually pretty important, Wes. – Would it be too unmanly for you to tell me what it was like?” I grinned. I’d heard guys brag about who they banged a million times, but it was always about that chick with the big breasts or that other girl with the killer legs. It was never… virginity stuff.

  “It would be, actually. It was good but I’m not going to see Liam again. That’s all I’m telling you. Wait, aren’t you a virgin anymore?”

  “No.” I swallowed the crazy laughter that was about to burst from my chest.

  “You just seem so… virginal.”

  “Good.” I patted his arm. “Let’s get back downstairs. You have to print a picture for me.”

  He grabbed his notebook and we headed downstairs, passing Trace on a landing. Alex had taken his place behind the bar, which meant Wes could disappear into his office without any weird explanations about why he was printing pictures of a woman in her late forties.

  “So, is he bisexual or something?” Sierra hissed while we took glasses from the dishwasher.

  “I don’t know, don’t think so. He’s helping me with some research.” I shrugged.

  Alex was so much easier to work with than Trace. I didn’t have to crane my neck in each and every direction and tiptoe around the bar just so I wouldn’t give him a strange look or accidentally brush his back. I didn’t have to think of ways to avoid him, so I spent all night mulling over my next step. It had manifested in my head when the first memory card proved useless. I’d just hoped to avoid it. Alas, I couldn’t. So, by the end of the night, I pulled out my phone, entered Sabrina’s number and cringed at the text while I wrote it.

  I’d love to come to your party! When and where? xxx Tony.

  Seven

  My watch was my new best friend and my worst enemy. I checked it all the time, only to see that just another minute had passed. How did people even survive when they anticipated something as badly as I did this party? Only in those fleeting moments when I dreaded my plan time started to race. At least the pub was crawling with people, taking my mind off what I’d be doing in only a couple of hours.

  “A Bulmer’s Pear, please.” I looked up at a yellow smile I’d seen before.

  “Coming right up, Reese.”

  “You remember me?”

  “Of course,” I smiled and opened his bottle. I didn’t tell him that I was just really good with names and faces and he was no special flower.

  “Well, I’m glad you stayed longer than a week already, Tony.”

  Sliding his bottle across the bar, I lied, “Me too.”

  I really couldn’t wait to get out of here. Granted, Alex was working again tonight, but I’d spent the last few days getting the stink eye from Trace and having him shoulder-crash me, when he could have easily slipped past. If I managed to get my mother’s telephone number tonight, I wouldn’t be here for one more week.

  “Thanks for letting me leave early, Alex,” I smiled as I untied my apron

  “Darling, you have to thank Wesley for covering for you.”

  “Yes, I’ve already done that.” I pulled the apron from my hips and folded it into a neat square. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I grabbed my bag from the office, slung it over one shoulder and left. I even managed to get a cab right away, because a small group of girls was just arriving. I held up my phone for the driver to inspect the address. It was a weirdly long street name that no one from this planet could have ever pronounced. Except for British people, of course.

  The party was in someone’s trashy backyard in the outskirts of London. A hollowed car, or what once had been a car, sat in the center of the yard with people sitting inside and drinks and snacks on the hood. The rest of the yard was filled with people and colorful paper lanterns in every size. The pot smell hung heavy in the air. I clutched the sleeve of my black cardigan to my nose as I skimmed the crowd for that head of rainbow colored dreadlocks.

  On second thought, I lowered my impromptu gas mask. Attracting attention would be counterproductive for my mission. I shrugged out of the cardigan and tied it around my waist. The white shirt was no flowery dress like those most girls here wore, but it worked better than the school girl look I managed to pull off despite wearing my ripped jeans. To finish it all off, I let my hair down from its tight bun. There you go, I was just another party girl.

  I didn’t spot Sabrina, but I found the perfect place to hide later. An overgrown red garden shed stood in the darkest shadows of the house. Spider webs clogged the door, but I’d manage with the spiders, if I pulled off the stint with Sabrina.

  “You’re unbelievable,” someone groaned behind me.

  I twirled around to come face to face with leather cuffs and tattoos and a not-so-happy looking Trace. Actually, he looked pretty pissed.

  “What now?” I sighed. His anger management issues were starting to get as annoying as they were frightening.

  “You’re following me to someone’s private party?!” His breath smelled like alcohol.

  I closed my eyes and silently counted to five before opening them again. “I was invited. Sabrina invited me. I shouldn’t even be surprised that you’re friends with these sorts of people.”

  “These sorts of people?”

  “People who are trouble, toxic. People I should avoid like I should avoid you. So excuse me.” I pushed past him, making sure this time I was the one to crash my shoulder into him on purpose.

  “Yes, excuse you,” he hollered after me.

  I reminded myself that I wasn’t here for him, and I wasn’t here for the party either. Finding Sabrina took forever, but when I did, it was as if she’d been there the whole time. She stood with a small group of people, chatting and laughing. I pulled my phone out and sent her another text.

  Thanks for inviting me.

  You’d think my pulse was rushing in my ears, or my heart jumping out of my chest, but I stood with steadiness and calm breath as I observed my target.

  Within moments her hand slipped into her jacket’s pocket and she retrieved a smart phone with an orange case. My phone buzzed with her answer. I grabbed a shot of vodka from the car hood and downed it for courage. The booze burned down my throat, as I strolled towards Sabrina’s group. I turned my head, pretending to be looking for someone, pretending to be careless, when I actuall
y was as careful as a surgeon.

  My shoulder collided with Sabrina’s. I banged my head into her jaw for good measure and let out a shriek, as her cold, green drink spilt down the front of my shirt. “Oh my god,” I cried. Everybody’s eyes were on me, and yet nobody noticed how my index and middle finger slipped into her jacket. You couldn’t use your thumb for pickpocketing unless you wanted to get caught. I quickly pushed her phone into the back of my jeans, where it burned against my butt. “Oh God, Sabrina! I am so sorry! I was just looking for a friend. I didn’t even see you there.”

  She clutched her face where I’d hit her with my head. “Oh goddess, oh, don’t worry. Look at that. I ruined your shirt.”

  “What? Oh, no!” I wailed. As if I actually cared about this top. I never wore it out in the open like this anyway. “Oh, I’ve got to clean it or dry it. Dammit. Uhm… I’ll find you later, okay?”

  “Yes! You must find me. I love talking to people from all over the world.”

  “Okay. Cool. See you around then,” I smiled and hurried off in the general direction of the house. Once I was sure nobody was looking anymore, I got out Sabrina’s phone and headed for the safety of the shed, giving myself a pep talk on the way. This was one time. This didn’t mean I’d loose everything I’d worked so hard for. I was still a normal girl, a good girl, because I’d give the phone back. I wouldn’t relapse.

  I shot one last glance around, then disappeared into the tiny shed. Lighting the space was easy enough with the phone and I settled against a table of tools. What would someone name the previous tenant of their house? I checked P, but that would have been too easy, so I scrolled back up to L. There was one Lawrence without any additional name. I pulled my own phone out and started copying the number, when the door swung open. I jumped back and hid both phones behind my back. My light sources died, and with them the chance to recognize the intruder.

  “Hello?” I said, because it was what every girl in every horror movie did and being killed would be better than being caught with a stolen phone. The strong smell of whiskey filled the narrow space.